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Two guest researchers from Indonesia, Cornelis Alyona and Bondan Kanumoyoso, have just arrived in Leiden to set initiate their Ph.D. research.

Sponsored by NUFFIC scholarships that have been made available to TANAP, the two Indonesians will mainly do a few months of library research under the supervision of Dr. H.E. Niemeijer.

Cornelis Alyona is a church historian from the Universitas Kristen Indonesia Maluku (UKIM) in Ambon. The Netherlands was his home base before. Earlier he served as a Protestant minister for the Mollucan churches in the Netherlands. He also participated in a project sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) into the Moluccas' church history 1600-1935. In 1998 he made several field trips with Hendrik E. Niemeijer in Maluku in order to find local church archives.

Alyona is preparing a Ph.D. research into the history of Christian (colonial) education in the Ambon area in the 19th century. "The objectives of my research here are to study the literatures and the historical pedagogy, as well as to collect materials for my dissertation as much as possible," says the Ph.D. candidate of the Faculty of Cultural Science of the University of Indonesia.

Dr. L. Groenendijk of the Vrije Universiteit, is guiding his literature research on the history of education. Dr. Th. van den End, an expert on missionary history, helps him with the missionary archives. Alyona will present his research proposal to the University of Indonesia on January 18th 2005. If admitted, Prof. Dr. R. Leirissa and Dr. Niemeijer will further supervise him.

Left Bondan Kanumoyoso, right Cornelis Alyona

Bondan Kanumoyoso participated in the TANAP programme before, following the Advanced Master's Programme in 2002. At present, Kanumoyoso is a lecturer in the new Department of History of the University of Indonesia. Over the last year, he researched the huge collection of notary archives of Batavia in Arsip Nasional in Jakarta.

What was his experience? "I could not imagine that the 18th-century sources on the Environs of Batavia would be available in such an abundance. They offer a lot of information on the Indonesian population. You can not find that kind of information except in Jakarta."

Kanomoyoso will return to Jakarta at the end of December to help organizing the special TANAP presentation day at the University of Indonesia on 18th January 2005.